Growing your network is likely one of the most important things you can do before becoming a full-time solopreneur. And yet, many engineers don’t know how to approach it.
Having a large network is important for many reasons. In a services/consulting business, your network (and the references you get from it) becomes the source of your contracts. In a product business, it generates users.
And even if you don’t become a solopreneur, your network can provide better employment opportunities, so growing it is a no-brainer.
What is Network?
But what is it, really? Your network is not the number of followers you have. It’s about people you can reach out to. People who will respond when they hear from you. And, most importantly, people who will help, refer, recommend, try, and offer their time.
So, how do you get people like these?
The Most Important Rule
The rule is simple: you need to be able to provide value. It may sound transactional, but it works.
Agree to provide feedback on a product MVP. Give advice on how to fix a problem. Write a recommendation later. Support someone’s promotion case. Meet with an intern for a coffee. And so on.
You’ll likely not benefit from it. But you’re building relationships , not clients. This is a long game to play.
And always make sure to follow up when you promise something. You want to be remembered as a person who delivers.
Ways to Grow
Your Current Job
This is the most effective way. People really value coworkers they previously enjoyed working with. Of course, you have to be that coworker. Offer help. Offer feedback. Unblock. Support. Be generous with your time.
When I worked at Shopify as a Staff Engineer, I had more 1:1s than my manager. Shopify is a really big organization, and I wanted to engage and collaborate with many brilliant engineers. I had three types of 1:1 meetings:
My teammates. In some companies with heavy processes, you may end up talking to your teammates all the time. Especially if you work in the same location. In other places, especially remote, it’s not always the case. So, make sure you spend enough face-to-face time and genuinely try to be helpful.
My mentees. Shopify had an official mentorship program, but I also unofficially started mentoring more junior engineers. Just because I recognized the potential and wanted to help.
My peers. Staff and Senior Staff engineers who were responsible for other parts of the Data Platform. Some were in different departments. I wanted to stay up-to-date on major initiatives (ideally try to influence them), and offer my help in aligning and unblocking major projects.
Some of these relationships really paid out: when I joined the next company as a Founding Engineer, I built my team exclusively from the folks I previously worked with and mentored.
Also, this might be another reason to switch jobs. I’m not proposing job hopping, but the math is hard to beat: working in 3 places 3-4 years each will generally grow your network much faster than staying in one place for 10 years.
Events
Conferences and meetups are really powerful ways to meet people you’ve never interacted with before. I’m an introvert, but I still find these events really useful. In retrospect, they made a huge impact on my career.
And again, many engineers don’t really know how to properly attend these events if they want to grow their network.
First of all, you’re not there to watch talks. Most conferences nowadays record their talks; they’ll be available for watching later. There are only a few reasons to spend your time on someone's talk:
The content is extremely relevant for you right now, and you can’t wait a few weeks for the recordings to be available.
You want to support the presenter and engage them after the talk.
You’re planning to write a post about the conference :)
So what do you do instead? You go to the “hallway track”: a place where most of the people hang out outside of the talks. Generally, something like an expo hall.
Start talking to people. Introduce yourself, but don’t talk about you all the time! You are there to listen. Ask about people’s challenges. And when you get enough information, offer to help. Offer to try their product. Offer to provide feedback. Offer to go over their problem yourself, or introduce them to someone else who can help. See The Most Important Rule again - be helpful!
If you already offer a service (maybe part-time), you can come much more prepared.
Many fancy conferences these days show attendees in their apps. So, do your homework and analyze them. Find people from relevant companies, write them down. You can even reach out before the event and say something like “Hey X! I noticed you’ll be at the event Y in two weeks, and it looks like your company Z does a lot of N. I’m really curious about your opinion on N, do you think you can find 20 minutes to chat?”
If there is no attendee list, you can do the same thing for the speakers. Thankfully, they’re always public. By the way, try to become one! Identify the list of events you’d like to speak at and regularly submit proposals. If you get chosen as a speaker, ask your company to sponsor your travel. Being a speaker is a great way to meet a lot of interesting people quickly:
You may get invited to speaker-only dinners/parties. I met Martin Fowler in Budapest at an event like that.
You become recognizable on the floor - people will want to meet you. In some cases, they’ll line up with questions after your talk!
Also, don’t forget to find time to check in with people you already know! Just a minute with a friendly face goes a long way.
Community
You can’t always visit events; travelling can be hard and expensive. But likely, there are people in your community you’d like to connect with. So, just message them! If they’re local, offer to meet for a coffee. If not, offer to hang out over a call. It’s not as creepy as it sounds if you follow The Most Important Rule - offer to help with something. The worst thing that can happen? They’ll ghost you.
Your community can be anywhere: social media, Slack groups, development mailing lists, open-source maintainers, Reddit, etc.